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Trademark Issue on Hold in the Nation’s Capital
According to Forbes, the well-publicized legal battle over the emblem for the NFL’s Washington Redskins has been put on hold. Recently, a federal appeals court delayed the case involving the legality of the team’s trademarked mascot and its controversial “Redskins” name. After unsuccessfully petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case, the professional football team’s counsel asked a Fourth Circuit Court to postpone a hearing scheduled for December 9th. They argued that that SCOTUS is soon to release a decision in Lee v. Tam, a case that could have a direct impact on the case against the Redskins. The issue […]
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Trouble in the Twittersphere
Twitter shareholder Jim Porter filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit in California federal court this week against a slew of Twitter executives. According to Fortune, the complaint claims that the defendants concealed the truth about Twitter’s slow user growth in order to inflate the stock price and sell their personal stock holdings “for hundreds of millions of dollars in insider profits.” Porter’s argument rests on Twitter’s portrayal of the company’s growth to shareholders, claiming that over time they deceptively switched the user activity metrics to keep up a high growth appearance. As an example, Porter claims that the micro-blogging company’s 2014 10-K […]
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Musicians Fight for Legal Reform in a Changing Industry
As the year draws to an end and music fans start to speculate on which artists will and should be honoured with Grammy nominations, the Recording Academy, the organization in charge of the Grammy Awards, will undoubtedly garner a lot of attention for its always controversial choices. However, most fans are unaware of the Academy’s influential role in the past decade as a lobby group for musicians and creators. Billboard reports that October 26 marks the third annual “Grammys in My District,” an initiative started by the Academy to organize musicians and music professionals to voice their concerns directly to elected […]
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No Grammys For Frank Ocean This Year
As reported by Billboard, Frank Ocean will not be winning any Grammy Awards this year. Despite being released prior to September 30, 2016, the 2017 Grammy eligibility cutoff date, neither Blonde nor the visual album version, Endless, were even submitted for consideration. Whether this was an intentional decision or an oversight is still unclear. One possibility is that, because the digital-only release was handled by Apple Music, there may have been confusion as to whose role it was to fulfill the traditional label function of submitting Ocean’s work for consideration. Alternatively, a source close to Ocean’s management claims it was Ocean himself […]
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Cox v. NASCAR: Frivolous Action, or Fight Against Racial Discrimination?
Hailing from the Great Peach State, Terrance Cox III filed suit against NASCAR, its parent company and eighteen of its race teams. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York on September 16, 2016, alleges that Mr. Cox’s, “attempts to make NASCAR more racially diverse were rebuffed by the sanctioning body.” According to the complaint, NASCAR encouraged potential corporate sponsors not to support Mr. Cox, who operates Diversity Motorsports Racing. In the world of stock car racing, a lack of corporate sponsorship is essentially a team’s death sentence. Mr. Cox asserts that NASCAR’s alleged racial discrimination has prevented black-owned […]
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New Jersey Argues State Sovereignty for Sports Gambling
Former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson has brought New Jersey’s fight to legalize in-state sports gambling to the U.S. Supreme Court. According to the Wall Street Journal, Governor Chris Christie first attempted to legalize sports betting in New Jersey in 2012, but when the courts struck down that law, he signed a new 2014 law that allowed limited sports betting at casinos and racetracks. However, this past summer, the Third Circuit held that even this limited allowance of sports gambling violates the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), a Congressionally enacted law that makes it unlawful for States to “authorize […]
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Fashion Police Strike Again!
Ralph Lauren, Payless Shoes, and the Kardashians’ Dash boutique have been sued for allegedly discriminating against visually impaired customers. According to The Fashion Law, plaintiff Andres Gomez filed separate lawsuits against each company last week claiming that, because the defendants’ websites are not equipped with any screen reader software, they have effectively “denied visually impaired [customers] from having full and equal access” to them, thus violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is a federal civil rights statute that provides that “no individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of […]
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1st & Goal for the College Athletes’ Rights
When the United States Supreme Court denies certiorari (cert.) to a case ruling that a large nonprofit organization is subject to federal antitrust laws, most in the sports world don’t pay close attention. On October 3rd, 2016, however, the U.S. Supreme Court grabbed the attention of the sports world by denying cert. in O’bannon v. NCAA: a case that held that the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) rules and bylaws operate as an unreasonable restraint of trade, in violation of antitrust law. Effectively, the Courts denial of cert. substantiated the 9th Circuits ruling that the NCAA could not prevent its member […]
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Judge Rules For Disney In Immigration Related Suit
A lawsuit brought by American technology workers against Walt Disney Company and two outsourcing companies, Cognizant Technology Solutions and HCL America, suffered a setback this week when a federal judge dismissed the plaintiffs’ claims. The plaintiffs, who worked at Disney, were laid off and forced to train foreign replacements, claim that Disney conspired with the outsourcing companies in violation of visa laws. According to the New York Times, the plaintiffs argued that Disney and the outsourcing companies colluded to make false statements when they applied for H-1B visas. When applying for H-1B visas, outsourcing companies need to show that hiring foreigners […]
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Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph” Not Worth Ten Thousand Words?
Irish superstar Ed Sheeran and his song writing team were recently hit with a $20 million copyright infringement lawsuit alleging that Sheeran’s hit song “Photograph” is a “note-for-note copying” of Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard’s 2009 song “Amazing.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, instead of disputing the technical musical issues of whether there was infringement, Sheeran’s lawyers are arguing that the court ought to dismiss the case on the grounds that the plaintiffs’ complaint is excessively wordy and unclear, thereby violating Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The heart of the issue is the plaintiffs’ sprawling 44-page complaint against […]
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“Smart Chase” Creates Legal Controversy Between Hollywood And China
Das Films, a U.S.-based production company, has sued Bliss Media, a Chinese company, for breach of contract in relation to Orlando Bloom’s new film, Smart Chase: Fire & Earth. According to the complaint, Das and Bliss signed a producer agreement in 2015 for the film, with Das Films as the producer and Bliss as the financier, and which included a $750,000 fixed fee for Das Films. However, Das Films claims that thereafter, Bliss engaged in a series of maneuvers to “invent” reasons to terminate Das because Bliss “wanted only to learn from [their] experience and not pay for the work.” The […]
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When Streaming Music Services Collide
According to the BBC, Spotify, the titan of the music-streaming world, is currently in advanced negotiations to purchase Soundcloud, the global online audio distribution platform. The potential merger comes at a time when competition in the music streaming world is at an all time high – although Spotify currently boasts 40 million paid subscribers, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, and Amazon’s new streaming service are solidifying themselves as formidable rivals. Both financially and intuitively, the potential merger between Spotify and Soundcloud makes sense; Soundcloud launched its own streaming service in March 2016 and “has been shopping itself around for some time, while […]